


we're all starving for the one thing we don't already have

by mariewinter



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 14:56:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6990031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariewinter/pseuds/mariewinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darth Zash, you are certain, has never been good.</p>
<p>You do not mind it as much as you wish you would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're all starving for the one thing we don't already have

**Author's Note:**

> i have a big crush on zash, so naturally so do my inquisitors.
> 
> yes. inquisitors. all of them. all of them have crushes on zash.

You see Zash and you are certain that she is going to be your Master. There is no other alternative, in your mind; it cannot be Ffon, you cannot imagine Ffon at her side, with his smug, idiotic face splitting into an arrogant grin—even the meager thought of it makes you feel _ill._ You don't believe in destiny or fate, none of that nonsense – things simply happen, and it's your job to take it all in stride. You rise through the ranks of the Academy quickly. You are born; you win. You are raised; you win. You are brought to Korriban; you win. You spar; you win. You battle; you win. You go into the tombs and you emerge alive, alive, alive. With dust in your hair and death on your robes, but _alive._

Ffon has none of that. He does not have your spirit, does not have your strength, does not have your will to live. You know this, like the beating of your heart. Ffon is a privileged little boy who knows nothing of struggle and of death and of life. Ffon, you decide when you see Zash, will be crushed under your heel. You swear this as you smile at Zash and feel your heart pounding in your chest and in your ears.

“Slave,” she calls you; your heartbeat is like a gong. “Acolyte,” she calls you; your heartbeat is like thunder. 

(Later, she calls you “Apprentice”, and your heartbeat shakes your ribcage.)

“My Lord,” you say, and wish you could call her _Master_ instead, but you are very certain of your path in life all of the sudden, so much that it feels like some sort of premonition awakening in your mind. You, not Ffon, not any of the other weaklings on Korriban who stumble through their trials with a sense of arrogance and idiocy, will be Lord Zash's apprentice.

It must be that way. You do not know why it must, but it must; it must, it must, _it must._

You must also breathe beyond the adoration that overtakes you as you look upon her. You two are connected now, you are certain. Surely she feels it as well. (But if she does, she does not show it; she simply sends you on your way.)

Surely.

 

—

 

When Lord Zash kills Ffon, something stirs in you.

You feel it; somehow, you feel the lightning in the air, you feel Lord Zash's anger, you feel Ffon die, you feel his last breath.

It is _intoxicating._

 

—

 

You hate Korriban and you love Dromund Kaas. If only because Kaas is so different from Korriban, all rain and humidity compared to red heat. It's all wet jungle instead of dry rock, darkness instead of searing sun, and you _love it._ You tell Zash this; she chuckles warmly, like you've told a joke, but in the next moment she leans in confidentially, over the desk, and says in a low voice, “I never liked Korriban that much, either.”

You smile and smile and smile.

Eventually it begins to hurt your face, but you can't stop, and you don't.

 

—

 

You wade through thick, heavy, acrid-smelling bug goo to please Darth Zash; they are huge, crawling things. Colicoids, they are called, but you call them insects, and not the kind one can crush beneath one's heel, either. You don't like that; you don't like things larger than yourself, especially not when they take on the forms of creatures that make your skin crawl just thinking of them. But you do not complain.

You are an apprentice; you are a slave-turned-acolyte-turned-apprentice, you are Darth Zash's, and that is enough to keep you going. You thrive on it, feed off of the knowledge that Darth Zash chose _you,_ and not any other.

That matters more than anything to you. Gladly, you will surround yourself with these colicoids if that is what she wants. You will do anything for Darth Zash; of this you are certain.

Of this, perhaps you have _always_ been certain.

 

—

 

Darth Zash betrays you.

It hurts like nothing has hurt before; and they do not understand. Andronikos, Khem, even Zash herself – they do not understand. You would gladly give yourself for her, anything that she asked and you would _do_ it, without hesitation, without any hesitation ever. And yet she told you nothing; deceived you, gave you gifts, gave you a ship, took you as her apprentice only to –

It is the Sith way, you remind yourself at night on the ship in the dark of your room, curled up underneath the luxurious silk sheets. It is the Sith way to deceive, to lie and to betray and to hurt and kill and take. You had been a fool to expect anything less. Ultimately, you know this. Ultimately, you understand this, and do not fault Zash for doing what Sith do.

And still it hurts, a constant ache in your chest, like it is overfull of things unsaid and the things Zash does to you. As an outlet, you spar with Khem; you allow him to win and win and win again, you allow him to make you bleed and hurt. Black-purple bruises spread along your limbs and torso where he strikes you time and time again, gashes where a vibrosword meets flesh.

You are Sith; naturally, you luxuriate in this physical pain. You try to do the same with the agony that grips you every night as you fall asleep, and it does not work; you continuously hate it, take no pleasure in it, cannot turn it into a weapon for you to use.

“I am sorry you failed, master,” you say one evening, distantly as you stretch out on the sofa and watch the flickering of the holoterminal. Your head hurts; your whole body hurts, sore inside and out, the pain coming in slow, languid waves. Even the pain cannot rush to greet you. It isn't overeager for you as you are for it. “But I am glad you did. Now you can feel trapped.” _As I do,_ you do not say. “Now you can suffer.” _As I do,_ you do not say.

Something in you has turned sharp-edged and cold like a knife ready to cut, and it is not a pleasant feeling but it is one that you turn to your advantage. It feels as though your heart is turning to ice or to stone, something hard and unbreakable, and though you hurt and though you cry from time to time into your pillow as a child, you have simultaneously never felt better.

(Yes, you have. You have always felt better. You are lying to yourself, like Zash has lied to you. That is what you are supposed to do, isn't it – learn from your master? So. You do. You do learn.)

She says nothing, trapped in Khem Val's body like a spirit in a shell greater than itself. She stares down at you instead, silent for a moment, and then Khem Val's mind returns to his body and he shakes himself, growling, the noise guttural. “The witch is gone,” he grunts. It sounds like he may add for now onto that sentence, to remind himself that she will never be fully gone until you find a solution for the problem. (You cannot help but fail to think of it as a true problem, and you hate yourself for it.)

“She'll return,” you say, certain of this, and you listen to his heavy footsteps against the ship's plated floor as he treads off to the room he has claimed as his own. You listen to the slow beeping of the holoterminal. It means that you have a missed call, and that you should respond or at least go to the holoterminal to erase it so that it stops that incessant noise.

You stay put on the couch. You close your eyes and drift.

 

—

 

In the end, you choose Zash. It is inevitable. “We will do great things together,” she promises, her voice mangled inside a form too large and guttural to properly accommodate for her natural voice, although there is no underlying echo of Khem Val's voice any longer. He has been separated completely. Vanquished completely. It is inevitable, you remind yourself; Zash is –

_We will do great things together,_ her words echo in your head. Is she lying, you think, is she going to crush your throat in your sleep, is she going to manipulate you again, is she going to betray you again. Perhaps she will find a way to do all three, despite the control you have over her.

These are questions that will be answered in time by her actions, but for now, you nod. You feel weak doing so. You are still Zash's, even though she calls you _my Lord_ and gives you gifts and smiles at you in a way that looks like a snarl because Dashade faces are not suitable for smiling.

You are still Zash's though you are technically above her in every single way.

And to know that makes you feel ill.

But, naturally, you smile back – and accept those gifts, and promise to restore her to her proper state one day, if she behaves.

And she teases you, “Oh, I promise I'll be a good girl from now on.”

It's a lie.

Darth Zash, you are certain, has never been good.

You do not mind it as much as you wish you would.


End file.
